The Beginning Of Something
by simply-aly
Summary: She sips with a playfully malicious grin on her face, and reluctantly, Elijah finds himself completely enthralled.


Elijah first meets Caroline in the Salvatore boarding house. The boarding house, because of Elena's legal ownership of it, becomes the unofficial headquarters of the 'Save Elena' campaign, and Caroline spends a lot of time there, as does Elijah. As it happens, one day when Elijah is speaking with Elena and the Salvatore brothers about his plan, Caroline storms in, slamming the door behind her. Almost immediately, Elijah is mesmerized.

All he sees is a flash of blonde curls, for she rushes through the living room before he can get a good look at her, but there is something about the way she entered the house that just…calls to him.

Elijah looks over at Elena, who doesn't seem at all surprised by the interruption, Stefan, whose eyes are tinged with amusement, and Damon, who is rolling _his_ eyes.

Soon, the mysterious blonde is back, holding two blood bags. Elijah watches Damon brighten at this, although he himself remains skeptical of her motives.

She grabs two glasses, and Elijah unabashedly studies her gentle movements as she pours the blood into the two glasses, grabs a bottle of scotch from an area he didn't know contained alcohol, and pours a generous amount of that into the glasses as well. Then she walks straight past Damon—Elijah notes Damon's glare as it follows the blonde—and grins at her when she presents him with the second glass.

She sips hers with a playfully malicious grin on her face, and reluctantly, Elijah finds himself completely enthralled.

Elena finally makes the introductions. "Elijah, this is my friend, Caroline. Caroline, this is Elijah."

She doesn't speak, and neither does he, but the look that passes between them says more than either could communicate with words.

The look the eldest Salvatore is giving him makes the moment even sweeter.

-x-

Later, when he is talking to Elena, he is really listening to Caroline argue with Damon in the next room.

"So, my Vampire Barbie's found a new _pet_ project," Damon says, picking a fight.

"I'm not your anything, Damon, and he isn't a project, he's…."

"You haven't spoken even one word to him yet, Caroline," Damon shouts. "In case you've forgotten, up until _very_ recently, he was leading the crusade to kill Elena."

"And, in case you've forgotten, Elijah was the one who saved me from Brady!" There is a pause, and when she speaks again, her voice is softer and Elijah can tell how close she is to crying. "Do you _know_ what they did to me that night? Do you have any _idea_? I…I wouldn't have lasted much longer with that gun, Damon…. He made it stop."

"They tortured me too, Caroline," Damon says in an attempt to relate to her trauma.

"And who rescued you?" is Caroline's quick response before walking out on him.

Elijah refocuses his attention on Elena so that when Caroline joins them, it doesn't look like he had been listening.

"Damon is _such_ a jerk," she says with a sigh of frustration as she sits down beside Elena.

Elena turns to her with a concerned look on her face. "What did he do to you, Caroline?"

Caroline, understanding implications Elijah knows not, shakes her head rapidly in denial. Her eyes are wide as she speaks, "Oh, no, it's nothing like that. He just…he seems to think he has the right to tell me who I can and cannot like just because we were once…just because he turned me."

Understanding dawns, and Elijah turns to hide his look of appreciation. She's choosing him over her maker.

-x-

He doesn't expect her defense of him to last, especially upon the return of her werewolf. But even when the werewolf—Tyler Lockwood is his name—displays an immediate dislike for him, Caroline never wavers.

They are often in the same room, and although they never speak, Caroline is usually in close proximity, and more often then not, sharing a drink with him.

Damon often complains—they're using up his alcohol, after all—but no one pays attention. Elena seems amused by the odd behavior of Elijah and Caroline, and Stefan, although wary, seems content to just watch from the sidelines.

Tyler glares from across the room, and Elena has pointed out once to Elijah more than once that the only thing she thinks Damon and Tyler will ever agree on is that he should stay as far from Caroline as he can. Elijah resists the urge to smile as he says, "I'm not seeking her out, Elena."

Elena raises an eyebrow. "But you don't mind her presence?" she guesses.

He thinks the question over carefully, debating his answer before finally, "No, I suppose I do not."

-x-

One day, when it's just them in the boarding house living room, they actually speak.

"Damon is getting used to it now," he says when she walks through the door.

Caroline looks around, and Elijah watches her curls fly around her head. "He's getting used to what?" she asks.

"Us," he replies. "This."

He gives her the glass of blood and alcohol this time, and she smiles. They drink in silence for a moment, sitting opposite each other on the Salvatores' couch. "I didn't do this to piss off Damon, you know," she says after a few minuets.

He raises an eyebrow. "The werewolf?" he guesses.

This time she laughs. "His name is Tyler, Elijah, and no—I started it way before Tyler came back, if you recall."

He is genuinely puzzled now. "Then why?" he asks. He has been alive for thousands of years—he's seen more than anyone, save Klaus, could imagine. It has been many hundreds of years since someone's bothered to get this close to him, and it's been over a thousand years since someone as young as this newborn vampire has defended him in such a manor, expecting nothing in return.

She shrugs. "I don't know," she replies. "You looked like you could use someone on your side—someone who wouldn't waver depending on who they're talking to."

Elijah just nods. He does not dare say it to her—doesn't want to ruin what it is or what it could be—but he believes the term for such a thing is _friend_.


End file.
